I put together a test case to demonstrate how the physical reads autotrace statistic could exceed the consistent gets autotrace statistic if a single-pass or multi-pass workarea execution were performed during the execution of the SQL statement. If you are interested, you can see the test case in this recent OTN thread. If I recall correctly, index pre-fetching could also result in a similar situation where the physical reads autotrace statistic could exceed the consistent gets autotrace statistic.

The result in the OTN test case left me a little concerned. It might not be well known, however it is possible to instruct Oracle Database to format normal base 10 numbers as Roman numerals with the RN format specification. For example:

You heard it here first, in Roman times 4,000 is equivalent to infinity. An obvious extension to this rule is that in Roman times the value of PI had exactly 3999 digits to the right of the decimal point. :-)

Hints for Posting Code Sections in Comments

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When the spacing of text in a comment section is important for readability (execution plans, PL/SQL blocks, SQL, SQL*Plus output, etc.) please use a <pre> tag before the code section and a </pre> tag after the code section:

<pre>

SQL> SELECT
2 SYSDATE TODAY
3 FROM
4 DUAL;
TODAY
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01-MAR-12

</pre>
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SELECT
SYSDATE TODAY
FROM
DUAL;

Is easier to execute in a test case script than this:

SQL> SELECT
2 SYSDATE TODAY
3 FROM
4 DUAL;

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